


I Shall Bind You to Me with Chains of Need

by DaltonG



Series: Orion Bound [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BDSM, Blood Play, Butt Plugs, Clint still blames himself for Loki stabbing Phil, Cutting, Dom!Coulson, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Play, Forced Orgasm, M/M, Masturbation, Piss Play, Power Play, Scratching, Sensation Play, Sounding, Tentacle Porn, Urolagnia, barebacking in a committed relationship, capsaicin play, gagging, nose plugs, phlint - Freeform, possibly abusive relationship, sub!clint, trigger warning for mentions of rats and roaches, trigger warning for non-epileptic seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:16:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaltonG/pseuds/DaltonG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is back from London. Clint does not plan to stay long. Phil is not interested in Clint's plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to "Reassurance".

Clint was sitting on the bed. Naked. He sighed.

He just had to get through this scene, let Coulson get whatever anger he had out of his system, give him some closure, and then he could be on his way. It was actually pretty nice of him to come here at all; it would have been so much easier to just disappear, to not deal with Coulson's disappointment and his inevitable attempt to stop him. Would've been easier on Coulson too; maybe it wasn't nice of him at all to be here. Now that he thought about it, maybe he should leave right now before he put Coulson through any more agony.

As Clint stood up, Coulson appeared in the doorway.

"You're not going anywhere," he said in his quietest, most dispassionate voice. The one he used on insane serial killers when they were handcuffed to a table in the interrogation room. The one he used on suicidal superheroes who just learned that they were different from the rest of humanity. The one he used on Tony that day that he found Tony holding a Sharpie just above his oldest Captain America card with an evil grin on his face.

It was a fucking scary voice, if you knew anything at all about Coulson.

Clint sat back down.

* * *

Coulson stifled a sigh. He walked towards the toy cabinet, looking over his shoulder at his soulmate, getting a read on his mood. It didn't look good. Clint's expression embodied deep defiance, his muscles as tense as if he were on a rooftop aiming at an alien. Coulson had only seen him look like this two times before. He had clearly made up his mind and Coulson had never had success changing this level of stubbornness. Luckily today he would have a little help. He resisted patting the little help that was tucked into the tiny key pocket on his jeans; no need to call any attention to what Hawkeye had surely already noticed and dismissed as a small vial of poppers. It had been a while since they used those, but it wasn't out of the question and would make sense in a scene meant to be convincing Clint of something. He couldn't stop a momentary shiver at the thought of what was really in that pocket. After a lifetime of staying on the right side of the spirit of the law--even if sometimes he was pressed right up against the clear and filmy barrier that separated right from wrong \--he was going to do something so heinous that he would probably never forgive himself, even though it was to save the man he could not live without.

"Get into position."

Coulson turned to focus on the toy cabinet. He heard Clint moving behind him. He would be going to stand in The Frame, the custom-built structure into which Coulson would secure him. The Frame was equipped with a multitude of soft leather straps. There were two wide ones that tied together around Clint's waist, which Coulson could tighten to near-corset levels of constriction; there were four sets that wrapped around his thighs, knees, calves and angles, anchoring him in place; there were two long straps that wrapped around Clint's arms and could pull them above his head or to the sides of The Frame, and there was a two-piece collar that tied together around his neck and could be used for breath play. Clint preferred to stand, and it gave Coulson easy access to vulnerable parts of his flesh which could then be whipped, beaten, cropped, licked, or smeared with heating gel. The beams of The Frame were made of thick solid oak and were actually anchored into the bedrock beneath the house. Even during a geologically anomolous earthquake last year, Coulson had stumbled but The Frame had stood immobile and Clint had been secure within it.

Coulson took out a flogger, a crop, a soft blindfold, some clamps, and what would surely dismay Clint, a cock ring. The timing of their orgasms would be particularly important today. He laid them on the bed in easy reach and moved to start attaching Clint to The Frame. He started with the waist belt, tying the laces on the back.

"Tell me what you did wrong," he said flatly.

Clint sighed. Normally that attitude would earn him extra punishment, but today was about much more than sexual antics.

"I said that I would disappear," he said in a tone of the tedious recitation of a schoolchild.

"That's not exactly it, is it."

Another sigh. "I said that I would disappear, and I meant it, and I was gonna."

Coulson squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, schooled his face back into neutrality, and moved in front of Clint. He noted that Clint's cock was about as small as he had ever seen it, even after that day they went ice-swimming near Reykjavik. He began lacing the front of the waist belt with gentle fingers and precise movements.

"Yeah, that's a better description of what you did wrong."

The waist belt was connected. Coulson ran his hand softly down the front gap, checking that the laces were well-tied. Then he grasped the two ends of the tighteners and yanked without warning. Elastic woven between layers of supple leather tightened until Clint had to take in shallower, panting breaths. The restriction was a cornerstone of their ritual and Coulson saw Clint's cock fill out a bit, watched his pupils open up, darkening his eyes. Coulson let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. At least this wouldn't be torture for Clint. That wasn't the intent.

* * *

Clint stared straight ahead as Coulson knelt and buckled the belts around his legs. The first set went around his upper-thighs, the top just at the crease between legs and his groin. The back of Coulson's hand brushed against his balls in a businesslike manner, but there was none of the "accidental" groping that usually got things started. The rest of the belts were put in place without any soothing touches, kisses, or nibbles. Shit, Coulson must be REALLY pissed. Too bad; it would have been nice to have one good last scene to remember through the long, lonely years to come.

All the leg belts were designed to force Clint into a wide stance that put him almost off-balance and tied his stability directly to The Frame. They had experimented with various methods to pull Clint out of his alert-and-ready mindset into subspace. The experiments, of course, had been pretty interesting, some resulting in giggle fits, some in so much cum on the floor that it looked like a small Elmer's glue storm had exploded at the foot of Coulson's bed. Their bed. No, now it was back to being Coulson's bed, but Coulson didn't know it yet. A stab of regret flickered through Clint and he held his breath for a moment to get back under control.

Now Coulson was fastening the neck belt, carefully avoiding Clint's gaze, which remained locked on the ridiculous abstract painting on the wall opposite. They had had a knock-down drag-out about that painting; Clint maintained that anything that was just meaningless blobs of color had no business being in a frame on a wall, and Coulson had spent hours trying to explain modern art and the importance of Rothko and a bunch of other pretentious bullshit. They had finally settled on: Coulson likes it, therefore it is okay. And that Clint got to keep his huge, garishly colored, bare-breasted poster of Artemis on the opposite wall. Clint would miss that poster; it was the first thing he bought for his first fleabag efficiency apartment when he escaped the claws of the circus.

Then his view of the execrable "art" was cut off as Coulson wrapped the blindfold around his head.

"Comfortable?" Coulson asked.

"Sure."

"Good. You won't be for long." There wasn't even a pause before the flogger slammed into his asscheeks; Clint was pushed forward as far as the belts would allow and the leather cut into his skin along his legs. This was no warm-up hit. Clint coughed and shook his head to clear it; this was not going to be a fun scene. Oh hell.

* * *

Coulson wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand, adjusted his grip on the flogger handle, and hit again as hard as he could. And swallowed hard at the sight of Clint pushed forward again in his bonds. It was the old this-is-going-to-hurt-me-worse-than-it-hurts-you gag. But it was the only way to get to what he had to do tonight. He let his fingers brush against the vial in his pocket as he allowed Clint to catch his breath.

Clint was never going to forgive him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson puts his plan into action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see end notes for possible triggers.

Clint's back was red and throbbing from an extremely thorough flogging. The beating had been going on for almost a half-hour. It was a fairly simple technique, but it had cleared Coulson's head and put Clint down deep into subspace.

* * *

Clint's love of back flogging had started about four and a half years ago, when they were left behind on a mission in Myanmar. Three agents lay dead, their bodies sinking into the shallow swamp under the mangrove trees. The other handler had fled as soon as the op started to go south. From his observer's position, Coulson had ordered Clint to move out, but as Clint slogged through the muck after dropping out of his tree, he was hit in the back by a sniper's bullet and fell face-forward into the murky water. Coulson took out the sniper and tried to hurry to Clint, but it was slow-going. The mud sucked off his boots and socks almost immediately. His cammo pants became soaked through and heavy and every step was slow, a struggle. Roots caught at his legs and panic rolled through his body in waves. He watched Clint sink below the water as he struggled to get to him. Clint had been fully submerged for two minutes by the time Coulson reached him.

Coulson dragged Clint's body onto a cluster of roots sticking out of the water and immediately began to pound him on the back. He had no idea where Clint was hit but he knew it was bad if Clint hadn't even tried to struggle to keep from drowning; however, trying not to exacerbate the paralysis took a back seat to getting Clint's heart and lungs started again. Clint's cheek was bluish. Coulson flipped him over, but there was no solid surface on which to perform CPR. He ended up stretching his legs out, ignoring the roots digging into his tired flesh, and put Clint over his lap to press on his chest with one hand, alternating with breaths every thirty seconds. After five minutes he would slump Clint over one arm and pound on his back with the other, then lie him back down and resume CPR. When Clint finally started coughing, Coulson couldn't feel his arms.

Adrenaline had given Coulson a bit of Captain America strength. When Clint woke up in the hospital (after a horrific extraction he was lucky enough to stay unconscious for) and was finally alert enough to grab his IV pole and hobble to the bathroom, Coulson was shocked to see the bruising on Clint's back, peeking through the gap in the hospital gown. (He willed himself not to look lower.) When he tried to apologize, Clint angled himself so he could see in the little mirror above the sink and came out of the bathroom grinning.

"What are you smiling about? I could've hurt you permanently." Coulson sucked in a breath. "I could have made that paralysis permanent. Oh god."

"It's the nicest fucking thing anyone's ever done for me," Clint said in a low voice. He leaned down, grabbed Coulson's head, and kissed him forcefully.

They were married when Clint got out of the hospital, two months later.

* * *

Coulson dropped the flooger and moved in front of Clint. He put his hands on either side of Clint's face and gave him a tender kiss. Clint had been able to keep it together until this, but that gentleness was his undoing.

"I'm going to miss you so much," he choked out.

"You're not going anywhere, Clint. I won't let you leave me, and I will never leave you."

Clint was sobbing now, almost silent, tears and snot streaming in abundance.

"I'm a danger to you, Phil. I'm a danger to you and anyone else around me and I will. Not. Have. You. DYING because of me."

"Don't you realize that if you leave, I really _will_ die. As surely as if Loki came back to finish the job."

"No, no, you don't understand. I have to go away to save you."

Coulson realized that Clint wasn't even listening any more, so lost in his own head. He pulled the blindfold off and Clint stared at him, his eyes wet with grief.

He couldn't do it while Clint was in The Frame. He would do it, but he had to have the illusion that Clint could get away.

"If I unbuckle you, will you stay while I make love to you?" he asked softly.

Clint nodded, gulping in air.

Coulson carefully unfastened all the restraints, kissing the skin beneath each buckle as it was revealed, wincing at the deep red creases where the leather straps bit into flesh. As he knelt in front of Clint to work on the leg belts, Clint's cock, red and weeping, jutted out into his face and Coulson just barely held back from wrapping his lips around it. It wasn't time yet.

Once Clint was free of The Frame, Coulson stood and wrapped his arm around Clint's waist and helped him walk the few steps to the bed. He turned him gently to sit and knelt between his legs to unsnap the strap around the base of his cock. Clint let out a tiny whimper of relief and a spurt of pre-cum dribbled out. Coulson allowed himself one closed-lipped kiss to the tip, then stood and helped Clint onto his stomach on the bed, licking his lips. Clint took a moment to stretch out muscles that had been held in one position for almost an hour. Coulson took a moment to admire the view.

A silvery disc rested between Clint's asscheeks, the base of the buttplug that Coulson inserted once Clint was bound to The Frame. It was a bit slimmer than Coulson's cock--they both liked to feel the stretch when Coulson pushed in--but Clint was open enough that Coulson wouldn't need to prepare him. Coulson rested one warm hand on Clint's hip and steadily pulled the plug out. He set it aside on a towel on the bed and pulled a condom packet from his back pocket.

Clint and Coulson hadn't used condoms since they were married. If Clint knew that Coulson was putting on a condom, he'd have a lot of questions, but Clint wasn't able to see what Coulson was doing behind him. Coulson was so good at preparation that the packet was opened before they started; the sound of the paper tearing was fairly distinctive.

Coulson took a moment to pull off his jeans, setting the vial on the towel. He flipped open the lid of the lube and while he slicked Clint further with one hand he smoothed the condom on his erection with the other, then wiped the excess lube over the condom. Clint crossed his arms above himself on the bed and rested his head on its side, his eyes closed. Coulson wiped his hands on the towel and then dragged them down Clint's back, awakening the welts and bruises with his fingertips. Clint groaned low and long in appreciation.

"Ready?" Coulson asked softly.

"Fuck yeah, stuff me full," Clint replied, and somehow the crude words were wistful.

Coulson knelt between Clint's legs, holding his cock at the base, and took a deep breath. Here goes, he thought. He pressed the head against the slippery, partly open hole and pushed in in one smooth stroke until he was flush against Clint's asscheeks. They both groaned as Clint's body stretched to accommodate Coulson's stiffness.

"I love you," Coulson murmured. Clint turned his face down and pressed his eyes against his arm.

"I love you," Coulson repeated as he started a leisurely rhythm. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

Clint glared back briefly. Coulson kept saying it in a steady voice, in time with his thrusts inward. "I love you."

Clint put his elbows on the bed and clasped his hands over his head, his arms covering his ears.

"I love you. I love you. I love you."

Coulson angled his cock to slide against Clint's prostate and was rewarded with a yelp. A grim smile appeared on his face as he kept that angle and grazed it with each push.

"I love you."

"FUCK." It had been mere minutes but Clint had been so aroused for so long that between the prostate stimulation and the grinding of his cock against the sheets he was shooting. Coulson felt the contractions begin and slid his hand underneath, jacking the stiff flesh and catching the jizz in his hand. He cupped it as much as he could and continued to thrust, needing Clint to notice nothing out of the ordinary. Clint gave a last groan and collapsed just a little more on the mattress. Coulson pulled his hand away and quickly grabbed the vial, scraping the creamy fluid into the tiny bottle. Then he grabbed Clint's hips with both hands and ground into him fast and hard, focusing his thoughts on the vision of Clint's cock in front of his mouth earlier and determinedly not thinking about what would happen next.

"That's it, Phil, fuck me, fuck me hard, use my hole, shoot into me," Clint said, his voice rough from yelling during the flogging, and that was enough, Coulson felt himself squirting into Clint, again and again, filling the reservoir of the prophylactic.

He allowed himself one moment to lay his head against Clint's fevered back before he carefully grabbed the base of the condom and pulled out. Quickly he squeezed as much of the cum as he could into the vial, stoppered it, and shook it gently. The contents turned a faint lavender and seemed to glow a bit. He pulled a syringe from a small bag and stuck its needle through the rubber top, sucking the solution up into the tube. He pressed the plunger gently until liquid dripped out of the tip.

Coulson swallowed. He had so little time before Clint turned all the way around and interrupted this. But he couldn't stand it if he didn't do it to himself first. He jabbed the needle into his thigh, wincing, and pushed the plunger until about half of the light purple material was gone. Then he lifted it out and stabbed it into Clint's buttock and injected the rest as fast as he dared.

"What was that," Clint asked hazily, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at Coulson.

What, indeed.

~ TBC ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: non-consensual drug injection. 
> 
> I have a beta! The marvelous [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint) did a mighty fast edit over the holidays; remaining delay and errors are entirely my fault. I think this is a four-chapter story but I haven't finished it so I haven't updated the stats. With any luck I'll finish before school starts again. Thanks to all my readers, new and returning, for hanging in with a newbie writer learning her craft.
> 
> Shameless plug for my blog: [ficfandom](http://ficfandom.wordpress.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What did Coulson inject in Clint? Ask the science brothers...

"Oh Bruceeeeeeey," Tony sings out.

Bruce glances up from his monitor and sighs when he sees Tony very obviously trying to hide something he's holding behind his back.

"Hi Tony. What's up?" he says, with only a little resignation. Secretly he usually ends up having fun when Tony gets that look in his eye.

"You'll never guess what I have here!"

"No, I'm sure I won't," Bruce mutters mostly to himself.

"C'mon, three guesses!"

"A lead-shielded .5 gram ball of uranium I've been asking you for for three months?"

"Nope! Try again!" Tony's cheer is impervious to Bruce's sarcasm.

"A new silencing device that allows you to babble and me to work in peace and quiet?"

"No, and that reminds me, JARVIS, it's awfully quiet in here, let's get this party started!" 

"Back in Black" oblogingly begins to blast out and Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel the headache hovering.

"One more try, Bruce. C'mon, pleeeeeease?"

"A cupcake for my birthday?"

Tony's face falls. "Shit, is it your birthday? Pepper didn't remind me! Shit, I didn't get you anything!"

Bruce cracks a grin.

"My birthday was last week, Sieve Brain. Remember the party? Besides, your lab is gift enough."

"Nope, and that's three guesses! I win!" Tony dances a little in place and holds up a test tube filled with milky fluid. "You're gonna be sorry you fucked around with me, because this is something you're really, really going to want, and I don't share with mean boys."

"Tony. Tell me that's not your semen."

Tony cackles. "Close."

Bruce closes his eyes. Oh, the headache is here all right, and making itself at home.

"Does Steve know you have his semen?"

"Noooooo!" Tony does some more dancing on the way over to Bruce and holds the test tube up a little too close to Bruce's face. "He really doesn't! Mostly because he would never give it to me. You know Steve. He's so uptight. Geez. It's just a little cum. Anyway, now we can play with it. Do you think the sperm will have tiny red-white-and-blue shields?"

"I am not analyzing a bodily fluid that was obtained from my friend without permission."

"Aw, c'mon Bruce! You're no fun!" Tony whines. "But you know," he says seriously. "This could be the key. You never tested this, did you?"

No, Bruce never tested Steve's semen to see if it was the key to replicating the Super Soldier Serum. It was hard enough asking Steve to give up blood and urine after S.H.I.E.L.D. had tested and retested him for a month. Steve was very patient with the labs, but Bruce knew that he was more than done with being a guinea pig. Of course he had thought about semen, and how probably no one in the 40's had tested that, but just hadn't had the balls to pester Steve. Steve had been through enough.

He reached out and gently took the test tube from Tony's fingers, setting it carefully in a holder on the lab bench.

"How on earth did you collect it without him noticing? NOT that I'm asking for any specific details, mind."

Tony chuckles a little. "Of course you're not." Bruce is so straight he could give Euclid's parallel lines a run for their money. 

"After Steve...uh...succumbs to the sexual genius that is _me_ , he's a little unobservant. I just used a dry washcloth and scraped as much as I could into this."

Bruce blushes a little. "Just how fresh is this sample?"

Tony grins and his pupils dilate a bit. "You really don't want to know."

"I really, really don't. As long as it's less than three hours old, we're probably fine."

"This is super-soldier semen, Brucey. It's probably good for another few days." Tony holds up a hand as Bruce opens his mouth to protest. "However, I didn't take chances. This is fresh enough."

"I don't feel very good about this, Tony."

"Noted."

Bruce goes over to the electron microscope and prepares the tiniest sample he can from the test tube. 

"I've never seen sperm this motile."

"Looked at a lot of sperm, have you?" Tony teases.

"Well..."

"Yeah, just your own. Every boy scientist has to, it's a rule."

"I don't have the experiments set up; let's store this in the freezer. I should have things ready in a couple of days."

"Sounds good." Tony puts a sterile lid on the test tube and tucks it and the holder into the little freezer where they keep biohazardous samples.

* * *

"You know that experiment we were working on?" Bruce asks Tony one morning as Tony puts a cup of tea down next to him and sips on his own lethally strong coffee. They've been up all night trying to improve one of the Iron Man suits which is having inexplicable steering problems.

"Which experiment, Bruce. We have one or two going."

Bruce lowers his voice almost to a whisper.

"The secret one."

Tony just stares at him blankly. All of their experiments are secret.

Bruce clears his throat. "The prurient one."

"OH! The Super Soldier Semen!" Tony exclaims. Bruce makes frantic shushing motions. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. You know the lab is sound-proofed, and JARVIS won't tell."

"Indeed I won't, Dr Banner. Your invasive unethical experiment secret is safe with me," JARVIS says.

"Never had any doubt you programmed JARVIS, Tony. Anyway. I tried everything; no go. It's not the secret ingredient."

Tony looks disappointed. Oh well, it was a long-shot anyway, and there are serious ethical concerns if they _could_ reproduce the serum. Maybe it's better that they can't.

"...Although it did turn purple."

"What?"

"The, er, sample. I recreated the formula I used when...well, when I met The Other Guy. And then I added your, um, material. The formula is colorless, but when I added the semen, the whole thing turned purple. I think it's because it was contaminated."

"Bullshit."

"No really, not all of the sperm were, well, equivalent." Bruce refrains from spelling out that some sperm had obvious low motility since Tony is probably never going to try for children. "Is it possible that some of your..." Bruce gestures vaguely towards Tony. "...got mixed in?" 

"No! No way! I was very careful. I know that when I jacked Steve off," (Bruce winces) "he shot all over his belly and his chest, and I didn't jizz anywhere near there."

Bruce coughs in embarrassment. "Was there any way you could have touched your own...ejaculate...before you touched Steve's?"

"No. No. No way. Not at all. I was careful. No. Um." Tony concentrates.

"Oops."

Bruce gives him a look.

"Uh. I kinda...well, we'd used up all the lube, and it's kinda sexy when my jizz starts running out of his--"

"STOP. Just stop. I get it. You fucked up the sample. It's understandable, it's a little hard to keep track of details when you're in that frame of mind."

Tony grins sheepishly.

"So let's get back to the purple. You're saying you zapped Steve's and my cum and it turned colors?"

"One color. Purple." Bruce goes to the freezer and pulls out a test tube.

"Uh, that's lavender."

"Okay, it's lavender. The fact remains that it turned a strange color."

"How do you know it isn't the serum?"

"JARVIS ran multiple simulations on virtual mice. There was no effect."

Tony smiled to himself. Bruce's refusal to work with lab animals was just so...him.

"Maybe JARVIS missed something. Sorry, JARVIS."

The hint of a quiet British huff ghosted in the air.

"...Maybe it just won't work unless it's in a live body. I mean this is some weird stuff, right? Chemical magic, in the sense that we just don't get how it works?"

"No, Tony."

"No what?"

"NO. You are not injecting this into yourself."

"Nothing that hasn't been inside me before."

Bruce groans. "The irradiated version has most definitely not been inside you." He begins walking toward the sink.

Tony grabs the test tube and runs out the door. "It's so pretty Bruce I just can't resist..." floats back.

\---

The first time it happens, Tony is out of the country, and he puts it down to missing Steve. He's alone in the Peninsula Suite in Tokyo, gazing at the lights of downtown, sipping from a glass of Macallan M and thinking that it's a bit overrated when he notices that suddenly he's on the floor, half-million dollar whiskey soaking into the carpet as the sturdy glass rolls away from him. The view keeps jerking around, and it takes him a while to realize that he's seizing. It's pretty fucking scary; there's no one around who could help him, no way to call someone.

Eventually he has control of his mouth again. "JARVIS," he calls out, his voice weak. 

"What's wrong, Tony?" his phone answers.

"I'm having a seizure."

Within minutes one of the best doctors in Japan is kneeling next to him in his suite; a half-hour later he is tucked into bed in a private room in a hospital, his vitals being monitored in person by another doctor, but the seizure is finished and he feels perfectly normal.

He doesn't tell Steve about it, because there's no need. Steve would just worry. He cuts his trip short, though, and gets back home, and that's the end of that.

Until the next time.

It only takes two points of data for Tony to find a pattern. The next time it happens is in Malaysia, and the seizure lasts a lot longer than five minutes. When he comes out of it he's drenched in sweat and other fluids and is completely disoriented. Despite JARVIS' best efforts, he wasn't able to get a doctor to Tony until the seizure was over. Tony has himself flown back to New York and has tests run in a private hospital without telling anyone he's back, but he's pretty sure what the cause is. Both times he'd been away from Steve for three days--usually they aren't apart for that long. He keeps picturing a syringe filled with lightly glowing, lavender fluid.

The tests come up clean, as he expected, and he goes home to the Tower.

"Bruce."

Bruce looks up immediately and comes over to Tony. Tony never uses that voice unless it's something deadly serious.

"What's wrong? You look pale. Come sit down." He pulls Tony to the mangy sofa in the corner and sits next to him, feeling Tony's forehead.

"So you know that test tube."

Bruce doesn't even hesitate. "Yes."

"I injected it."

"I figured."

"I think I know what it does."

Tony proceeds to fill Bruce in on the two seizures and the timing issue. They sit and think.

"Maybe the radiation fucked with your nervous system?"

"Thought of that, had them run neurological tests. No problems."

"Some kind of brain damage?"

"CT scan normal--and gorgeous, I might add. Cognitive tests useless but nominal."

"Okay, let's narrow down what's going on for that three days. You're away from Steve, which means you don't have...what?"

"Sex?"

"Don't think going without sex for three days ever killed anyone."

Tony looked at Bruce.

"Semen."

"How often do you guys have sex?!"

"Well, at least once a day."

"So going three days without, what, touching his semen? Having it, er, inside you? Swallowing it?"

"Dunno. Guess I'll have to experiment." Tony grins.

"Maybe don't let it go far enough for the seizures."

"How else will I know if it's a problem?"

"You'd at least better tell Steve."

"Yeah, sure, I'll let him know."

Four days later, as Tony lies rigid and silent on the floor with a naked Steve in tears nearby, Bruce is sure Tony did NOT tell Steve what was going on. Bruce works to keep Tony safe for the duration of the seizure and then decides that he will have to fill Steve in himself once the medical emergency is resolved.

Bruce has never heard Steve raise his voice before, and his skin goes a touch green.

"Tony injected WHAT? And now he has to have my WHAT or else he'll DIE?"

Eventually Pepper is told, and she works out Tony's schedule to ensure he has access to the life-giving fluid on a daily basis. Of course Coulson, who is now the Avengers liaison, has to be informed as well; he just rolls his eyes and makes a note in his Tony folder.

And then one day, when Phil realizes that Clint just isn't getting over being possessed by Loki, even though it's been three months, he goes to Tony and Bruce and asks them for some help...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazing [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint) has once again beta-ed, making this chapter readable with her fantastic beta skills and providing insightful and spot-on fixes which she turns around on a DIME, people, on a DIME, even when the author comes back with whiny questions and requires a second edit. Any errors are entirely my own as I tweaked yet again before posting. The egregious delay is also entirely my own fault and I deeply apologize; sincere thanks and sympathy to anyone who is following as a WIP, you readers are much heartier than I am.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint reacts.

"What was that?" Clint asked.

Coulson had prepared for this moment. He had practiced this speech more times than he'd practiced the speech telling Fury he would leave S.H.I.E.L.D. if Fury didn't let the Avengers know he was alive.

But when he glanced down at Clint, and really saw Clint's back—a mass of raised welts, some bleeding, that covered the skin from his shoulders to his thighs—he realized he'd skipped aftercare in his desperate quest to capture Clint's semen.

"Lie still for a moment, and I'll tell you everything." Coulson walked naked to the bathroom and began soaking the softest flannel they owned in cold water. As he squeezed out the excess he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This would go one of two ways.

Clint might think it was a heinous violation of his individual rights, that Coulson had poisoned him, forcing him to stay with him even past divorce—divorce that would be likely if Clint took this poorly. He might see Coulson as the worst of the many terrible people who had hurt and tried to control Clint throughout his life. He might hate Coulson more than he hated his family.

Or he might think it was the most romantic thing Coulson had ever done and wrap his arms around Coulson in thanks and relief.

Coulson knew the second outcome was possible, but he couldn't help but feel the first was far more likely. He reminded himself that he didn't care, that all that mattered was that Clint stay alive and safe and protected by S.H.I.E.L.D. and by Coulson, whether Clint wanted it or not.

He bent down to retrieve antiseptic and healing lotion from the cabinet below the sink and turned to bring the first aid materials to the bedroom—

—and saw that the room was empty.

"CLINT!" Coulson dropped everything and ran, willing his heart to stay calm so he could think. He pushed back the heavy curtains and yanked open the window, looking down at the street and then up at the roof.

"No, Clint, don't do this to me..." He ran through the apartment and out the front door, taking in the empty hallway. He knew that it was already too late.

He ran back inside and picked up his StarkPhone, uncharacteristically fumbling it, unable to press the button and finally shouted into it. "JARVIS. CALL TONY." 

"Tony is on the line," JARVIS said calmly in a tinny phone voice.

"Agent, what's the what?"

"He left." Coulson distantly noted that his voice was trembling.

"I'm on it." Tony's voice held the calm no-nonsense competence that he could sometimes display when the situation was really serious, and Coulson took a quick breath.

Tony would have access to all surveillance in the city and would be processing it already. If anyone could find Clint before he completely disappeared, it would be Tony.

Coulson allowed himself to collapse onto the bed and leaned over his knees, his face in his hands.

"I've got him on your roof jumping to the next building, but then I lose him." Tony sounded frustrated. "JARVIS, c'mon. The guy can't just disappear. Where the fuck is he?"

A minute passed, then two.

"Phil. We don't have him. He must have avoided the cameras in the building next to you and used an underground exit that isn't..." There was a pause as Tony probably pulled up specs. "...on any schematic we can find. It's time to call the cavalry. I'm adding Natasha now."

"What do you want, Tony. I'm busy." Natasha sounded annoyed.

"Tash," was all Coulson could say before his throat closed.

"What's wrong?" The switch to mission-ready in Natasha's voice was reassuring.

"Coulson did something questionable and something went wrong and Clint bailed. We've lost him on surveillance," Tony supplied.

"How long?"

Coulson had to clear his throat before he could choke out, "Two minutes before I called Tony."

"And I've been searching for three," Tony added.

"Shit. You guys know better than to wait that long. Phil, where was he last?"

"My apartment, then the roof on the building with the weird awning next door."

"I'll try his old safe house first. Tony, call Sitwell and get a search started."

Coulson forced his throat to work. "Tash, they tore that place down."

"No, Phil, there was another safe house you never knew about, from before he joined S.H.I.E.L.D. That's where he'll go first."

Coulson set that piece of information aside to agonize about later.

"Where is it. I'll go."

"No, you're not in any shape to be running around and besides, you're not stealthy enough. If he's on the run he can't know we're there. I'll be in touch." Natasha dropped off with an audible click.

"Sitwell is mobilizing five agents, Phil. Says most everyone is out on ops right now. But you know no one is as good as Natasha."

"I know," Coulson whispered.

"Phil. I'm sending Steve to bring you back to the Tower. You know we'll see it if he comes back to your place, and you need to be with us right now."

Coulson nodded, not even aware that Tony couldn't see it.

"Do you want me to stay on the line with you?"

"No, I'll get dressed and get my things." Coulson glanced down and noticed without interest that he was naked. "There's something I should be doing right now. I just don't know what it is."

He could hear Tony's indrawn breath. "There's nothing you can do right now, Phil." Tony's tone was gentle. "Right now the waiting starts. Everything that can be done is being done. JARVIS is watching the entire city; we'll see if he leaves. Now the tough part starts." 

Coulson clicked on the "End" button absently.

* * *

By the time Steve arrived—maybe 10 minutes later, if Phil were thinking clearly he would have been concerned about the risks Steve must have taken to get there that quickly—Phil was fully dressed in a crisp suit and tie. A toothbrush and one of Clint's sweaters from the laundry hamper were in a briefcase. Phil watched Steve walk into the bedroom. Steve had never been in this room, and he took it all in without a change in expression: the Frame, the toys on the floor, the blood. Coulson thought he should be embarrassed, but he just felt numb.

Steve took his elbow and gently helped him to his feet without a word. The worry on his face was comfort enough; Steve wisely did not try to offer any platitudes. The rest of the trip was a blur. Coulson resurfaced to find himself on the giant sectional in the Avengers common room, Bruce pressing a mug of something hot into his hand, but his hand was shaking too hard for him to hold it. His whole body was shaking. Shock, he noted absently.

His side felt warm and he glanced to his left to find Tony snuggled next to him. Tony squeezed his shoulder. Steve sat down on the other side and wrapped his arms around Coulson's torso, one leg across his lap, and Coulson was literally surrounded by comfort and love. And all he could think of was Clint somewhere, shivering, alone, unaware of the danger awaiting him a few days hence.

Sobs were torn out of his throat and Tony wrapped around him the same way Steve had. Coulson clutched at their arms and drifted in grief.

* * *

Even if you were only 10 feet away, it's unlikely you'd see Clint standing with his back against the little rooftop stairwell shelter. His clothes and his face are covered in paint in a pattern that blends perfectly with the brick. He'll stand out as soon as he leaves, but this is the most important hour, the hour he cannot be seen.

He had been able to slip into the condemned building and retrieve his stash from the boarded-up 19th century sewer pipe in the basement before Natasha arrived. Even though she is being extremely stealthy, he knows her too well and is able to watch her investigate all the reasonable rooftop positions surrounding the safe house and then the unreasonable ones. He takes a moment to be grateful again for his insanely good eyesight and ignores the pain in his back, cloth sticking to the open wounds as he presses against the brick wall. The pain is a minor irritant, noticeable only for how it was acquired, for the loss it signifies.

He should never have done one last scene. He should never have let Coulson fuck him one last time. His brain stutters at the word "fuck"—that was making love if they had ever done it—but he scowls slightly and sticks with "fuck" because it will make things easier.

Whatever Coulson injected him with, it isn't working. He's certain that he isn't being tracked. Nothing suspicious is moving in the neighborhood; no S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are present. Natasha has been unable to locate him using all her skill so there is no way she has any technological help. He appreciates Coulson's last desperate attempt to keep him from running, but he loves Coulson far too much to endanger him any longer. It's not even superstitious, he thinks. When the evidence from your entire life is that the people you care about die, you have to respect the pattern. Coulson being alive is an anomaly, a grace period; the next time will be permanent and Clint cannot live in a world where he killed the man who holds his soul.

He's lived in stealth mode before. It won't be hard. He won't be able to work with a bow any more; that saddens him. But there are still countries where his face is unknown; there are always bad guys who want other bad guys taken out. He'll sign on with a ship carrying questionable cargo and make his way to one of those countries. He knows how to be a mercenary. He'll have to use the sewer system to get to the port; unpleasant, but quite doable.

He watches Natasha check the basement again and then take up watch on a rooftop nearer the safe house. He's at least 15 stories above her roof and has a clear, if distant, view. At night he relaxes, squatting in position and eating a very old MRE. The water in his stash had been befouled—he hadn't resupplied recently enough—so he drinks his own pee and stale water from a puddle nearby while he waits Natasha out. After two days she gives up and in the night he makes his way down the side of the building, ever-watchful for her to return, and manages to slip under a sewer cover in an alley.

He ignores the pounding headache that came on in the past day, knowing it must be from dehydration.

~ TBC ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray for [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint), who did not one but two edits on this chapter, making it infinitely better and more readable. This was meant to be the last chapter but Clint has a mind of his own and now I don't even know how many chapters are left. Fear not dear reader; I do know what happens to our hapless heroes and will tell you as fast as real life allows.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint hits the sewers. Phil relies on the kindness of friends.

“JARVIS, any update?” Tony asked.

“No sign yet of Mr. Barton, sir.”

Coulson blinked, the only indication that he heard.

* * *

Clint had mercifully forgotten the distinct odor of the sewer system, but that probably had something to do with Loki rearranging things while meddling in his brain. The unique scent hit him the instant he lowered himself into a manhole, and it brought a feeling of terror; suddenly he was 17 again and hiding from Trickshot and Barney, hearing them run past overhead and hollering for him. 

And then it shifted, and the melange of human shit, cat and dog piss, and rotting meat reminded him perversely of safety, of knowing nothing would touch him as long as he stayed in this little pipedom of hell on earth. In the dim light filtering through the manhole cover he watched a few startled, squeaking rats run away from him on the little ledge beside the shit-river and felt himself relax. The sewers had never failed him, not once. Even the giant worm-things AIM set on them that one time refused to follow him into the sewer, allowing him to sprint underneath their battle line and come up on the street at their rear to take them down with acid-tipped arrows.

He paused for a moment to orient himself and ignored the moving wallpaper of cockroaches next to him. It was critical to keep a mental compass while down here, along with awareness of the times of high tide. Getting turned around or forgetting how long you’d been down could lead to a really disgusting drowning. He had about five hours until the tide would start to rise; if he travelled unerringly northwest, he should be able to get to the ports in plenty of time. He began to walk north, re-learning how to not think about the sensation of soft things squishing under his boots and the feeling of cold, disease-ridden water soaking his socks and wicking up his pants legs. He kept his pace steady, moving his feet below the waterline so as not to splash any more fluid into his face than absolutely necessary.

He noticed one bold rat pacing him on the ledge. He stopped and the rat stopped too, staring at him. He started walking again and the rat scurried along with him.

“Gonna keep me company, huh? Better dig in; we’re going all the way to the ports.”

* * *

“It’s been 60 hours, Tony. 60 hours.”

“I know, Phil.”

“What happens at 60 hours?”

“I don’t know. It could be different in everyone; it’s never been tried in anyone but me.”

“What happens to _you_ after 60 hours.”

“Nothing, except that I’m unbearably horny, but that was true before I injected myself. Two-and-a-half days is way too long to go without getting some.”

Coulson’s glare actually made Tony take a step back. He had been coming back into the living area with more coffee, this time with cream and sugar despite Coulson’s protests. Coulson wasn’t eating so Tony was going to get some food into him somehow. (He knew Coulson wouldn’t be able to taste the pea protein powder he’d also mixed in; he was a pro at hiding nutritious yet smelly powders in liquids.)

“When do your symptoms set in.” This was Coulson’s most dangerously flat tone, one that had left much tougher men than Tony trembling in fear in interrogation rooms.

“Right at 72 hours, like clockwork. That’s when the seizures start.”

“How helpless do the seizures make you?”

“The first one was short; I was incapacitated for about a minute, right, JARVIS?”

“One minute and 18 seconds, sir. I was quite worried.”

“Aw, JARVIS, I like you too. Then the next one was the really bad one, so I think it ramps up.”

“We don’t know if it will manifest as seizures,” Bruce chimed in. “We don’t understand the mechanism of the addiction…”

“...and we will NOT be doing any further testing,” Steve said firmly. 

They were all sitting on the sectional, except for Thor, who was off canoodling with Jane, and Natasha, who was curled up in a big cushy chair with a laptop, providing backup searching for JARVIS and training the A.I. on all the less obvious factors of Clint-flight. “Nanny 911” was on the TV, but the sound was off and no one was watching but Coulson, who stared at it without taking it in.

“What I mean is that it could present as anything; a migraine, paralysis, diminished mental clarity...we just don’t know.” Bruce looked at Coulson apologetically but didn’t mince words; he knew Coulson would want the truth.

Coulson nodded once, his expression blank.

JARVIS made a polite throat-clearing noise. Coulson raised one eyebrow at the ceiling.

“Agent Coulson, may I discuss a somewhat sensitive issue with you that may become a strategic problem soon.”

“Go ahead, JARVIS.”

“I apologize, but you may want me to discuss this in private.”

Phil glanced around the room. Steve politely averted his eyes; Bruce coughed and stood up as if to leave. Tony was thumbing something into his StarkPad. Natasha was watching him steadily, a rare warmth in her eyes.

“You can talk about anything here, JARVIS. We’re among family.”

Bruce sat back down with a shy grin on his face. Natasha’s lips quirked in approval and she looked back down at her laptop.

“Sir, once we find Agent Barton, in order to return him to health, we will need to immediately—” JARVIS paused the tiniest bit. “— _expose_ him, as it were, to your ejaculatory fluid.”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“SHIT.” Tony was looking alarmed; whatever JARVIS was worried about was immediately apparent to him as well. He sat down next to Coulson, leaving a few inches between them on the couch. Which was strange, since he’d held onto Coulson for the past few hours, clinging to him almost as if he needed comfort more than Clint’s actual spouse would.

“Phil. Where are you going to get jizz when we find him?”

Coulson looked quizzically at Tony.

“Um, the usual place, I assume?”

Now Bruce was looking concerned as well. Steve’s eyebrows creased in concentration until he, too, had a look of dawning horror.

“What? What is upsetting you guys? It’s not like you haven’t seen a penis before.”

“Phil,” Steve said gently, leaning across from his seat on the other branch of the sectional’s L. “When we find him, you’re not going to be in any mood to be, um, providing fluid for him.”

“You think when we find him, I won’t be able to get it up.”

“Well…” Steve hesitated.

“You are under a great deal of stress,” Bruce said softly. “And when we find him, there are likely to be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and police around. You won’t have any privacy.”

“It won’t be sexy times,” Tony agreed.

Coulson sighed. “So what do you suggest?”

“You might consider collection now, while we are still searching for Agent Barton,” JARVIS said.

Coulson laughed sharply. “You better believe I don’t feel like getting it up now.”

He noticed Steve and Tony exchange a look.

“You might have to, Phil. It could be the only thing that saves Clint’s life,” Steve said.

“We’ll help.” And now Tony was up against Coulson’s side again, wrapping an arm warmly around his shoulders.

* * *

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Clint said to Rizzo, who had stopped again when Clint stopped, staring in dismay at the two tunnels in front of him.

They were standing in a sort of grand sewer chamber where a total of seven tunnels came together. Enough ambient light from Brooklyn’s nighttime streets filtered through the covers to let Clint see the rat’s bright black eyes watching him. He’d named him Rizzo after the character in “Midnight Cowboy”. Rizzo didn’t seem to mind.

There was nothing for it; he was going to have to emerge and get his bearings from the street. Which wasn’t going to be easy, since the sewer grates were all in the center of the chamber’s ceiling without ladders or any other obvious way to reach them. The two tunnels in front of Clint both seemed like they headed west, but it was possible the one to the left was true west and besides, why were there two tunnels right next to each other? Something was off.

“You wait here.”

Rizzo sat up on his haunches and watched.

Clint sloshed to the side of the chamber, feeling around. This section was one of the older bits of the system and the walls were brick. He scrambled up the side, easily finding finger- and toe-holds until he was against the roof. He reached up blindly, unable to see anything in this dark corner beyond the grate, and was relieved to feel a pipe. He wiped slime off the metal as best he could, wiped his left hand on his wet pants, grabbed hold, and swung out.

A sharp pain stabbed through his head, and he lost his grip on the pipe and splashed down hard in the muck.

Rizzo ran off a little ways and sat back up to see what Clint would do next.

What Clint did was spit, over and over, trying to get the putrid taste out of his mouth. And then he cursed, long and vigorously. He flexed his hand, making sure it felt normal. 

Pain had never made him so much as twitch an eyelid in his life. He’d waited out a mark in a nest for seven hours one night as a migraine rose and took over his whole existence with flashing lights, throbbing, nausea and violent shooting pains whenever the lights from a car turned his direction, and he still drew his bow and shot his target 1000 meters away, precisely through the guy’s left eyeball, when Coulson called it.

He stood up. He was now completely drenched in the materials flowing through the tunnel. He turned back to the wall and climbed up again, this time more carefully as his fingertips were more slippery, and grabbed the pipe above with both hands. He swung his legs hard up and kicked the grate off in one go. With a second swing he managed to flip himself up through the hole and onto the street.

He immediately took stock of his surroundings. He seemed to be in a shitty little park that consisted mostly of dirt and some worn-out playground equipment. Streetlights lit the clearing, but the whole area seemed quite deserted. 

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered down into the sewer and then wondered why he was talking to a rat. He slipped into some bushes and got a better look at where he was. There were no traffic or security cameras that he could see. Tenement buildings surrounded the park on three sides; on the fourth he could glimpse moonlight reflecting off water, blocks away.

Right. Now he knew where he was going.

An old pipe with a handle stuck out of the ground next to the clump of bushes. He knelt next to it and turned the spigot. It squealed but yielded a dribble of cold water. It was enough. He ducked his head under, scrubbing his fingers through his hair, then lifted his face to the flow, eyes shut tight, then opened his mouth and let it fill with the clean water and spat, over and over, until the taste in his mouth was bearable. He took the time to rinse his hands but gave up on cleaning anything else; it would just get befouled again.

He shut the faucet off, took a deep breath, and dropped back into the sewer hole. He didn’t bother to try to pull the grate back on; he would be long gone before anyone noticed it was askew. After the splashing settled down, he looked and was oddly pleased to see Rizzo still sitting on his haunches, waiting.

At least, he thought it was Rizzo. Who knew with sewer rats. All he’d really seen was a furry shape, a long tail, and glinting black eyes following him for the past hour.

“It’s this way, old pal. You’re gonna hafta swim it if you’re coming with me.” Clint headed off to the leftmost tunnel and grinned when he saw Rizzo jump into the water and paddle alongside him. He waited for the rat to make it to the other side, and if he helped the sodden creature scramble up onto the ledge and stroked him to draw some of the muck off, well, no one ever needed to know.

Clint had to take his friends where he could find them, now.

* * *

“This isn’t going to work.”

Coulson was sitting on Tony’s bed, arms wrapped around his knees, shivering a little in his boxer-briefs.

“That’s the spirit, Phil. That’s that can-do Avengers attitude we all know and love,” Tony shot back as he pulled items out of a drawer. He kept throwing things on the soft flannel sheets ...three kinds of lube, various sizes and flavors of condoms, a dildo, a larger dildo, a butt plug, a couple of gags. Steve had stripped un-self-consciously and was sprawled against the headboard, looking as relaxed as Coulson had ever seen him.

Coulson knew Steve was big—he’d watched him over the cam when they were taking care of Clint, and it was obvious that when the serum made him bigger, it made _all_ of him bigger—but it was another thing to be confronted with it in real life. Coulson thought penises that large only came in silicone. 

“Pretty, isn’t it. You’re welcome to go down on it, if you think you can get your mouth around it,” Tony commented, pulling off his t-shirt and adding a soft blue glow to the room.

“Yeah, that’s not usually my thing,” Coulson said, hugging his knees tighter. This was just a bad idea all around, he thought. 

“No, it’s not your thing, is it,” Tony said thoughtfully. “You’re a top all the time, no switching for you.” He sighed. “My loss.”

Coulson raised an eyebrow, and Tony met his gaze steadily.

“Interesting,” Coulson said.

“Yeah, someday when we’re not in a time crunch, ask Steve about it. Now. I recommend one of these.” Tony held out a blue pill and a glass of water.

“Viagra?”

“Better. Something we’ve been working on at StarkChem. Don’t worry, Bruce approved it, even if the FDA hasn’t. Stupid lawsuit-avoiding motherfuckers. Anyway, it doesn’t just help you stay up, it helps you get there too.”

Coulson took in a deep breath. Clint was depending on him, and he hadn’t felt less sexual since he’d visited his parents’ house during the winter holidays. Come to think of it, this was worse; Clint had coaxed him into a blowjob in his childhood bedroom, against his better judgement. Now he felt like he’d never be turned on again as long as he lived.

He took the pill and swallowed all the water in the glass, knowing it helped with dissolution and entry into the bloodstream. 

“Well?” he said sarcastically to Tony.

“Might help if you took those off,” Tony snarked back, and Steve hooked his thumbs under Coulson’s waistband and watched for permission. Coulson nodded and Steve slid the underwear gracefully off and dropped it over the side of the bed. Coulson wanted to put his hands over his soft cock. Jesus, he felt exposed.

“Steve,” Tony prompted, and Steve scootched down until he was lying flat across the bed on his stomach, his head propped against Coulson’s inner thigh.

“May I, Phil?”

“Give it a try,” Coulson said without enthusiasm, but he grunted a little as Steve’s warm mouth engulfed his limp flesh.

Steve extended his broad tongue and managed to lick under Coulson’s balls, swiping around to pull them into his huge mouth along with Coulson’s cock, which was starting to show some interest in the proceedings. Coulson sighed and leaned back on his elbows. Tony’s bed really was too ridiculously wide. Steve put his large, warm hands on Coulson’s hips and hummed as he sucked and rolled his mouthful. The lights were dim, but Coulson could see Steve’s expression, and there wasn’t a hint of pity in it. In fact, Steve looked as though he was getting something he’d wanted for a long time.

“Do you know how long we’ve wanted to play with you, Phil?” Tony whispered in his ear, climbing behind him on the bed. Coulson could feel Tony’s hard cock against his back as Tony snuggled up behind him, taking his weight easily. Steve slid his hands under Coulson’s ass and lifted him up, sucking more vigorously. Coulson felt his cock lengthen, and Steve let his testicles slide back out over his slick, soft lips. Now Steve’s hot mouth surrounded Coulson’s cock completely and he let his hands rest on Steve’s head, threading his fingers into the thick hair and pulling a little.

Steve moaned around his cock.

“That’s it, suck that cock, boy. You love giving head, don’t you.”

Steve was unable to answer, so Tony answered for him. “You have no idea, Phil. He was made to be filled with cock 24/7. One of these days we’ve got to fill both his holes and keep him quiet like this, just pound into him from the front and the back, making him take our jizz like a sponge and come back for more.”

Coulson saw that Steve was grinding a little against the sheets now. Clearly Tony knew what to say to his sub.

Tony wrapped his hands around Coulson’s chest and made a little inquisitive noise; at Coulson’s nod he squeezed each nipple gently between his fingers.

“That’s what Steve wants, you know...to be tied up tight and blindfolded, to be given no choice in the matter, just to be a receptacle for come, to have cock inside him and on him, coated in semen inside and out. He’s just so good at being used by penises, aren’t you, Steve. HEY, stop grinding there, you know the rules.” Tony pinched a little harder as he barked at Steve and Coulson yelped a little. He felt his cock fill out completely, and Steve whined in appreciation.

“You like a little nipple play, you big bad Dom you?” Tony murmured. “A little stimulation to go along with whatever nasty thing you’re doing to your sub?”

“I’ve never tried it before,” Coulson gasped. “It’s never come up.”

“So to speak,” Tony said reflexively. For a few moments there was just the sound of Steve slurping messily at Coulson’s cock and Coulson panting as he started to lose himself in the sensations. Tony continued to pinch and roll Coulson’s nipples, grinning smugly at having introduced something new to the Über-Agent.

“I need more,” breathed Coulson. “This is good but it’s too vanilla, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Tony said. “Be a little mean.” He handed Coulson a long crop he hadn’t noticed before. “Just try to avoid the kidneys,” Tony advised, and Steve moaned a little more in anticipation and just barely stopped another attempt to grind into the sheets. Coulson sighed—this was not a good angle—but decided to give it his best effort. He leaned over to try to hit Steve’s ass, but it was just too awkward, and the leather barely made a sound against the skin. He settled back and tried for Steve’s shoulders, and the whimpers from Steve were encouraging, but it felt too close to bone for Coulson’s taste.

“Not working like this, Tony.”

“Want him tied up while he sucks you? Or maybe bounces on your dong?”

Coulson winced. Tony’s language really left something to be desired. Like dignity.

“I just...I don’t think I can come without _him_ here.”

Steve lifted his head off Coulson’s cock with one last, lingering lick and frowned up in sympathy.

“Wanna watch me do stuff to him?” Tony offered.

“Maybe some other time.”

“Okay, well, I was trying to avoid this. But. Bruce came up with something in case Steve ever had your problem. Which he wouldn’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. But. Anyway. We should try it.” Tony stepped off the bed and pulled open the drawer in the bedside table. He took out what looked like a thin rod with a tiny paddle on one end and a big black box on the other.

“An electric prostate stimulator? You’re going to _milk_ me?”

“Well, no, not exactly. It’s not...electric. And we don’t have to milk you. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Perhaps you’d better explain to me _exactly_ how it works.” Coulson noted that the “blue pill” was doing its job well. Though he was completely turned off and growing angry, his cock was fully erect and ready to go.

“It uses sound waves,” Steve blurted out. Both men turned to look at him.

“What, I pay attention. Bruce said it uses sound waves. And it feels really good.”

“It doesn’t have that scary electric zap some massagers have,” Tony added. “It’s 'gentle yet effective,' though it doesn’t work overnight—it’s a lot quicker than Dulcolax.”

“It better not do the same thing as Dulcolax.”

“Never has with us.”

Coulson scrubbed his face with his hands. He wasn’t fond of anything going into his anus; he’d much rather put something in someone else’s. This was completely humiliating.

He dropped his hands and looked at Steve and Tony and saw two friends who only wanted to help him, and he nodded.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Five minutes later, Steve was spitting into a little jar and Coulson was staring up at the ceiling, feeling a little too blissed out to be effective on any kind of search and rescue mission.

* * *

“Here we are,” Clint whispered to Rizzo, as he stood in cold, salty water that was now up to his knees, ignored the pains shooting through his head, and gazed out the tunnel opening at the harbor. 

Rizzo squeaked in agreement.

~TBC~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah to the ever-marvelous [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint) for another 24-hour turnaround that improved this chapter by leaps and bounds. Also love and snuggles to R, who let me read this to him at 2 am (and edited it by ear alone) even though this isn't his ship and slash isn't his cup of tea.
> 
> Not having ever been in the sewer tunnels of NYC (or sewer tunnels anywhere, for that matter, and boy am I grateful), I relied on the following articles for research: ["Into the Tunnels: Exploring the Underside of NYC"](http://www.npr.org/2011/01/02/132482428/into-the-tunnels-exploring-the-underside-of-nyc) by Jacki Lyden, _NPR_ , Jan 02, 2011, and [The Smelliest Block in New York"](http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2011/smelliest-block/) by Molly Young, _New York Magazine_ , Jun 19, 2011. I guess 2011 was a banner year for odors in New York. As for the specifics of the geography of the sewer system, well, I made it up based on the general shape and orientation of Brooklyn, seeing as five minutes of rigorous research yielded only Brooklyn sewer maps from 1906, which was a bit out of date for my story. I have no idea if the sewer system actually has chambers or parallel adjacent tunnels, but it's my 'verse, so let's say it does.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint makes it to the port.

“Okay, here’s the deal. I gotta swim it from here to the dock. I don’t think you can swim that far. So we’re gonna part ways now; it’s been fun, but I gotta go do something.”

Clint had crouched down to talk to the rat. He knew it wasn’t the sanest thing he’d ever done, but he was keeping a solid quash on roiling feelings of fear at being on the run once more after all these years and on a piercing loneliness at knowing he would never see his soulmate again. He didn’t have any energy left to hold back the sentimentality he’d developed for his travel partner. An odd clarity washed over him, like the sharp awareness brought on when the mark appeared during an op. Everything felt important, like the years of his life had narrowed down to this one hour; like everything depended on what he did next. Shared adversity creates a bond; Rizzo was a war-brother.

“So hang in there, back in the sewer. It’s your home, right, so you’re used to it?”

Rizzo stared up at him without blinking.

“Sure it is. You’re a sewer rat. So we’re good. High five.” Clint swallowed hard and held a finger up to the rat, almost expecting it to push its little paw up against his fingertip.

Instead, Rizzo stood on her hind legs and wrapped both small arms around his finger, closing her eyes and bumping her head against his hand.

Clint choked, and his eyes watered over. Gotta be the headache. But fuck it all, you just didn’t leave a man behind.

“Okay, new plan. I’m gonna hop into this river, and then you’re going to hang onto my head and we’ll both go to the dock together. You ever sailed on a cargo ship? No? Well neither have I; how about we learn together.”

Rizzo opened her eyes and nuzzled against him. Clint took that as a sign of accord and jumped into the water. It was a lot colder than he’d anticipated. He swam the few feet back to the tunnel portal and carefully lifted the rat onto his head, then began dog paddling as fast as he could towards the dock. His extremities were quickly numb; when he finally clambered onto rotting wooden boards it was with hands he couldn’t feel. The rat hopped nimbly off his head. All Clint wanted was to dry off, but he leaned over the edge of the pier and splashed water on his hair and neck to complete his impromptu sewage-ridding bath. Then he gently poured water over the rat until the fur was gray instead of brown. The rat sat up and used her front paws to scrub at her face and ears, and they were ready to go job-hunting.

* * *

Clint stood on the bridge and watched as the ship drew away from the dock. He’d signed on just as it was about to get underway. They were leaving more swiftly than was usual for a ship this big. He’d heard talk of weird currents and fucked-up riverbed topography; although the crew was anxious, Clint was relaxed. There would be no work for him to do until they made it out of the river to the ocean. Then he would have all the rust-chipping and painting duties he could ever ask for, on 12-hour shifts with 6-hour breaks. Well, it would get him fed and get him to Singapore. He gazed at the stacks of containers in front of him. He knew that at least half the cargo was most likely illegal or worse, but he’d left the law-abiding life behind and knew to keep his mouth shut.

“Take a good last look, Rizzo. We won’t be seeing this city again.” Rizzo obediently faced the shoreline. A couple of crows flew silently past; two seagulls fought over garbage on the deck. Clint flexed his aching hands and sighed.

Three more crows flew by and Clint idly tried to think of the name for a group of crows. A mob? A gang? No, it was a murder, wasn’t it? He remembered one night where he and Coulson were drunk and were looking up mass nouns. He shifted that thought ruthlessly away and focused on the blue sky above, filled with cumulus clouds.

He watched a dozen more crows fly past, circling up into the sky and suddenly disappearing. Clint thought the birds looked strange, and upon closer inspection, he realized that they weren’t flapping their wings. He frowned and looked back at the Brooklyn landscape behind them. Swarms of crows were coming from around the harbor buildings, clumping into streams that swirled up into the sky. It was very strange and coordinated. He’d seen birds fly in a V-formation before, but never anything quite so geometric. And these were clearly _powered_ -flight birds.

More and more bird-shaped _things_ came, soaring into what were now four rough spirals that vanished—just _stopped_ —about a thousand feet into the air. And then a horrible, groaning noise swept down from where they were disappearing. Rizzo crouched close to the deck.

Clint was watching, unblinking, as a faint outline appeared in the sky around the four points where the bird-things were vanishing. It was the outline of the Helicarrier, which was swiftly becoming visible above the river. Tilting, dangerously. Clint quickly realized that the bird-things were being directed into the four engines, as sabotage, and the effort was paying off on at least one turbine. He started looking around the bridge of the cargo ship for something he could use as a weapon.

The sky darkened, and Thor landed on the bridge accompanied by a lightning strike to the highest antenna on the ship. _That knocked something out_ , Clint thought.

“Noble Hawkeye. What is this sorcery?”

“Dunno, Thor. Looks like someone programmed some birds as weapons,” Clint shouted above the groan of collapsing metal. One corner of the Helicarrier was but a few yards above the water.

“I shall attempt to bolster the flying machine.” Thor swung Mjölnir and headed towards the drooping corner.

Iron Man flew in, Metallica blasting, and one of the streams of bird-things faltered, moving away from the noise. Between them, Thor and Tony started to lift the Helicarrier away from the water.

Which is when the leviathan appeared.

“Oh hell. They built one. They built a fucking Kaiju,” Clint murmured to Rizzo as he grabbed a yellow cannister and aimed towards the nearest runnell of robotic crows.

“Let’s hope this thing does what I think it does.”

“Hey, put down that line thrower!” yelled a guy coming out of the pilothouse to see what the fuck was making all the noise. Clint twisted the handle on the line thrower, and a plastic rod attached to a lot of rope shot about 200 meters into the air, knocking out several robot-crows and disrupting the flow into the closest engine.

The Kaiju was also busy, grabbing a corner of the Helicarrier with two giant clawed hands and yanking down. The Helicarrier was about the size of a coffee table compared to the Kaiju; while the creature had to put some muscle into it, the Helicarrier really didn’t stand a chance. One whole side crashed into the river, dunking Thor. Tony shot out of the way before he was pulled under. A quinjet arrived just in time to see the Kaiju use its inner limbs to rip an engine off the craft; S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tumbled out into the water from the gaping hole.

Clint turned to the ship’s crew, who were now standing behind him on the bridge, gaping at the horror show in front of them.

“Launch the lifeboats, NOW. You, grab all the blankets you can find. You guys, take the life jackets and row those boats out and start picking up people.”

Now the crew were gaping at Clint.

“NOW! FUCKING MOVE! PEOPLE ARE DYING!”

Crewmen began swarming down to the deck.

“But the monster…” protested one.

“We’ll take care of the monster. You save the people.” Clint stared him down. “They’re counting on you.” That seemed to do the trick.

“What else do you need?” A crew member Clint had thought was a teenaged boy dumped a pile of blankets next to him, and Clint realized it was actually a woman. A part of his mind idly wondered how tough a woman would have to be to sign on to crew this sort of a ship. The rest of his mind was occupied with tying the pylon from the next line thrower he’d grabbed around an uninflated life raft. He aimed it towards the survivors bobbing in the water, but the first time he tried to twist the shooting mechanism, his hand cramped and nothing happened. He set it down and massaged his left hand with his right, frowning down at the paralyzed fingers.

“C’mon, now’s not the time.” He flexed, and his hand seemed okay again. He picked the line thrower back up and this time, the folded bundle of plastic shot precisely where he wanted it; he saw an agent, in the water near the sinking Helicarrier, pop the inflating mechanism, and the little boat started to fill out. Clint secured his end of the rope to a nearby cleat with a neat hitch knot.

“What is that thing?” asked Blanket Woman, pointing at the roaring, dripping giant towering above them.

“Yeah, remember that movie, _Pacific Rim_? We heard rumors that AIM got all inspired and was trying to build one of the robots, a Kaiju. Looks like they succeeded.”

“The fuck are you doing here, Barton?” Iron Man called over his P.A. system, hovering near the cargo ship.

“How’d they know where the Helicarrier was?” Clint countered. “Here, haul this in when people have hooked on,” he said, handing the rope to Blanket Woman and grabbing another line thrower.

“We don’t know; JARVIS is on it. Phil’s been out of his head, you damn idiot.” Tony darted away to start pulling people out of the drink. The quinjet was shooting at the Kaiju but it just seemed to be pissing it off.

“Hey, bossy guy. There are bombs in the crate right below you. Think a bomb might take the fucker down?” asked the deckhand as she reeled the inflatable, now holding a dozen sodden agents, slowly toward the ship.

Clint grinned. “Thank fuck for illegal cargo, huh?” He scrambled down and pried open the door of the container she’d indicated. Sure enough, it was Explosive Central. He grabbed what he recognized as a suitcase bomb and clambered back up to the bridge over the railing.

“There are steps right over there,” she pointed out dryly.

“Boring,” Clint replied as he attached the bomb to the throwing pylon. “How do I arm this son-of-a-bitch?”

“Just twist this thing, here, and click the switch here. You’ll have five minutes before it goes off. It’s tiny; we should be out of range.”

“Thanks. You’re scary.”

“Actually, I’m Felicia, nice to meet you.”

“I’m Clint.”

“Yeah, I know who you are. Glad you were on our ship today.” Felicia turned and ran down the steps to help pull survivors over the side.

Clint finished attaching the bomb to his line thrower and climbed up on the bridge barrier, knees against the rail, to have the best shot at the Kaiju. He armed the bomb, lifted the projectile and aimed.

And fell over the rail onto the deck, crumpling into an awkward heap. And didn’t move.

“NO!” Phil screamed from the deck of the quinjet, watching from above the collapsing Helicarrier. 

The Kaiju roared and pushed another corner of the dying Helicarrier into the water.

~TBC~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All hail the mighty [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint), beta supreme.
> 
> Now with art! The fabulous [spudqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spudqueen) made me a cover! It's a customization of one of Tarlan's [wallpapers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1119756). Thanks so much, sweetie!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil tends to Clint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for potential trigger warnings.

Iron Man landed inside the Quinjet, Clint held against him as carefully as possible.

“C’mon, Coulson, climb aboard. Time’s a-wastin’.”

“What are we doing?” Phil asked, even as he stepped onto the one unoccupied red and gold boot.

“Gonna set you two down out of the battle so you can tend to your boy while we save New York. Again.”

Phil hadn’t ridden the Iron Man Express before, and it wasn’t pleasant. He clutched Tony’s suit as tightly as possible and kept his eyes shut, and he was glad for the solid, bruising grip of the metal arm around his waist. He kept his own arm clutched around Clint’s shoulder, though he knew that physics dictated that he could do nothing at all to keep Clint safe in this flight. Iron Man set down suddenly, but gently, on the New York City shore in a deserted corner of the rail terminal of a cargo dockyard. The sounds of the Kaiju-bot battle were distant from here. Phil stepped off Iron Man’s foot as Clint was laid on the ground. 

“Take care of him,” Tony said through his speakers, and then he was off in a whoosh.

Phil knelt beside the prone body of his lover, which was contorted in an odd, rigid position. It seemed as though he’d had a seizure of some sort. Phil brushed the sweaty hair back from Clint’s forehead. 

“I’m so sorry, Clint,” he murmured.

He pulled the vial of semen from his vest pocket, silently sending up thanks to Tony for creating the virtually unbreakable glass composite it was made of. He unstoppered it, carefully tilted Clint’s head into a position where he was less likely to choke, and tipped the edge to his lower lip.

“Agent Barton, drink this,” he ordered in his very best, Do-This-Now-or-Suffer-the-Consequences S.H.I.E.L.D. Handler voice. Clint reflexively swallowed every drop. Phil lowered Clint’s head and tucked the vial back into his pocket so as not to leave evidence behind. He took Clint’s hand in his and waited.

A few seagulls flew past.

A ship’s horn, somewhere that commerce was still happening, sounded mournfully.

And then Clint coughed.

And spluttered.

And opened his eyes.

“Phil?” he said wonderingly.

“PHIL? What the fuck?” Clint sat up. “What...where am I? What are you doing here? I was...you’re not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to...shit.”

“You were running away from me like a fucking idiot. It backfired. Thank god.”

“I guess it did.” Clint rubbed his face with both hands. “There was…shit, the Helicarrier?”

“Don’t know. You were dying, that took priority. For me, anyway.”

“We’d better go help.”

“Yeah, I’d like to. Except, um, I think I’m going to pass out now.” And Phil did exactly that.

“Wait. Phil? No, no, you do NOT get to just slump over and stop talking. Phil? PHIL. Wake the fuck up. PHIL!!!” Clint screamed at Phil and shook him, slapped his face, screamed some more. He pressed his finger to Phil’s carotid artery and found his pulse distressingly erratic. He let out a noise that he’d never heard himself make, and it was a frightening noise.

He took a couple of steadying breaths. Think, Clint. Okay, Phil had been on the op. He must have a comm unit. He fumbled at Phil’s left ear, where he always kept the earpiece. Sure enough, there it was. He pulled it out and tucked it into his own ear canal.

“Cap?”

“Hawkeye! Thank God!”

“Cap, Phil’s sick.”

“What’s wrong with him.” Steve’s voice dropped instantly into command mode.

“He keeled over. Pulse irregular.”

“Fuck,” Tony chimed in. “FUCK. Steve. Steve! _It goes both ways_.”

“Oh God,” Steve said faintly.

“What? Guys, what are you talking about? What do I do?” Clint called out, frantic.

“Hawkeye, listen to me very carefully. I don’t have time to explain, but I’m not joking here. You’re going to have to…” Steve coughed slightly. “You’re going to have to, um. Jerk off in his mouth, to save his life.”

Clint drew himself up a little, sitting on the dirty concrete. “Captain Rogers, I don’t know where you are, but when I find you, I am going to put an arrow in—”

“Clint, he’s not trying to mess with you.” Bruce’s voice broke in.

“What?” Clint asked.

“I know this sounds like a cruel joke, but this is an actual, Stupid Science Thing that happened. Only your semen will save Coulson’s life. You’re going to have to find it in yourself to generate semen and get it into Phil, as soon as possible, or he will die. You have to literally save him with your love. I’m sorry, Clint.”

Clint stared into the distance, trying to understand what Bruce was saying in his ear. He knew Bruce wouldn’t fuck with him. He looked around; he was sitting between a couple of two-story windowless buildings, doubtless used as warehouses to store goods coming off container ships. He and Phil were alone, no one around but a few seagulls. In the distance, sounds of the battle raged on.

“You might want to switch off your comm for this. But turn it back on and let us know what happens when you’re done, okay?”

Bruce’s voice was calming, centering.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Clint agreed and switched off the comm.

Shit. Fuck his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a description of feeding ejaculate into the mouth of an unconscious person—and ordering him to swallow—who would give consent if he was conscious.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can Clint save Phil?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for potential trigger warnings.
> 
> Note also that the tags have expanded greatly with this chapter.

Okay. He could do this. Sure.

Here, in this warehouse railyard, on cold hard concrete and gravel...

Sitting next to a man he'd tried to leave so that he could keep him safe...

Who was, ironically, now currently comatose and probably dying...

Near a harbor that was being wrecked by AIM's latest monstrosity of a brainstorm...

Clint would take cock in hand, lazily stroke himself and shoot off into Coulson's unconsenting mouth.

Sure. Sexy times.

Clint put his face in his hands and yelled in frustration.

He clamped his mouth shut and swallowed and realized that his mouth tasted like Phil’s jizz. What the fuck?

What had that insane soulmate of his gone and done?

Maybe Bruce really wasn’t making this up; maybe there really was an “actual, Stupid Science Thing.” Sure tasted like there had been.

He put his hands on his knees and breathed deeply with his eyes closed, gathering his wits. If Phil’s life depended on this, then he would make it happen. He didn’t know why Phil’s life would depend on his ejaculate, but stranger things had certainly gone down around the Avengers.

He sifted through his memories, trying to think of the dirtiest things that he ever relied on for jacking off. Hmm. The dirtiest things he’d ever heard of were actually things he’d done with Phil...he started sifting through his memories of spectacular Phil-sex.

_For his birthday one year, Phil had tied him to the bed and filled every orifice of his body, slowly, while forcing him to watch hours of tentacle porn. Phil had started with a dildo in Clint’s ass, and a gag with a breathing hole. And then it had gotten interesting, with earplugs streaming the soundtrack to the tentacle porn. And breathable nose plugs. And finally a urethral sound that Phil plunged in and out excruciatingly slowly. He had felt so stuffed, so helpless. The dildo had had a small, light vibrator, custom-fit to press directly on Clint’s prostate, and once in a while Phil would activate it until Clint would cum, and the orgasm would bounce the metal sound but not push it all the way out. Throughout the afternoon the sound stuck further and further out but never left his urethra entirely. Phil had been very careful with it, and Clint had cum five times—he hadn’t thought that had been possible, since adolescence. Phil finally took the sound out and the cum had spurted_ everywhere _. And then Phil had taken his time untying Clint and unstoppering him and then punishing him for the mess, which had been every bit as wonderful as making it in the first place._

Clint came back to himself and found his cock satisfyingly hard, but that wasn’t going to get him off. He pressed his hand against the outline of his erection in his jeans, trying to visualize some of the tentacle porn, but it vanished like fog in a rainstorm and his eyes opened to see Phil lying helpless in front of him, and his cock softened a bit. 

Clint looked around. No one was nearby. No one. Time to get serious. He unzipped his pants and tucked his briefs under his balls and gave his cock one thoughtful stroke, looking down at the man he thought he’d never see again. He reached down to brush Phil’s cheek with the backs of his fingers, then let his fingertips trail down the front of Phil’s chest, feeling the soft cotton of his navy blue S.H.I.E.L.D. go-shirt.

He knee-walked awkwardly up to Phil’s head until his cock was closer to Phil’s mouth and sighed. This was just plain weird. Then he settled back on his heels and stroked himself some more and gazed down at Phil, looking back into his memories.

_The time Phil fucked him alongside a dildo. Hot, but it kinda hurt._

_The time Phil had gotten a really sharp knife and sterilized it in an honest-to-god medical sterilizer and made a hundred tiny cuts on him, and then they’d tried to frottage-fuck in the blood and found out blood makes a really shitty lubricant._

_The time they hired a call boy. Damn, that was a wild night. The kid had taken Viagra, or a knock-off, and they were exhausted after, actually had to call in sick to work. They’d given the kid a $1000 tip and had taken him out to breakfast._ (The kid and his partner still sent them holiday cards. They had a baby now.) 

_That night had, oddly enough, been the first time he and Phil had done golden showers. Just the two of them of course, no sharing body fluids with others. The kid had egged them on and they’d “let flow” on each other in the bathtub, giggling at first and then having trouble as they both quickly hardened, amazed as they let each other see that vulnerability, sharing themselves at that depth._

_The kid, what was his name, Billy? had murmured encouragement to get them started: “Yeah, that’s it, piss on him, give him your fluid, let it out. Just give it up. Make a mess. Let it all out, c’mon, you have nothing left to hide, he knows_ everything _about you, right? Inside and out...you can give him everything, let him take everything.”_

_Clint remembered that around then he’d started cumming, hard, so hard he stumbled and fell, right there in the bathtub. Phil’s piss hit him in the face, went into his mouth, and he closed his eyes, yelling, spurting jizz god knew where. Phil was yelling too, and crying, and Phil fell to his knees, hugging Clint. And then Clint was crying, and they were tangled up together, wet, and holding each other. And Billy put his hands on each of their heads like a fucking benediction, and they’d stayed still like that for a long time, soaked with various fluids and cold and breathing like they’d run sprints. Clint hadn’t thought he could love Phil any harder before that night, and yet he had. He remembered flashing back on the moment in that old animated Christmas special when the Grinch’s heart grew three times bigger, and it had hurt; it had physically hurt as though his own heart had been expanding inside his chest._

_Afterwards, Billy had turned on the shower, and they’d gasped and laughed and gotten cleaned up and dried off and rolled back into the bed and had a lot of sex. Phil and Clint had _looked_ at each other a lot that night—deep powerful looks like before they’d gotten together, and it was soon after that that they made their way to the New York Justice of the Peace and had gotten married._

Clint opened his eyes again and found he was frantically jacking himself off, making himself raw, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. This wasn’t going to work. He sniffed messily and wiped at his cheeks with back of his wrist and looked around him. Yeah, like they stashed tubes of K-Y jelly in shipyard alleys just in case someone needed to save a lover—wait, that was a can of marine lubricant. Well, it would have to do. Clint stumbled to his feet, impatiently kicked off his jeans and underwear, grabbed the can, pried off the top, and scooped out a handful of somewhat slimy jelly.

“Okay, baby, hope this doesn’t taste too bad.” He smeared it around his cock and used the thumb of his other hand to gently open Phil’s mouth a bit. Then he let his eyes drop shut and sighed in some relief at the now-smooth glide of his hand around his shaft, and he drifted into another memory.

_He and Phil had been at a safehouse in snowy Siberia. No one was going to be picking them up for days, and they had read every book in the little cabin twice. They’d had plenty of food, but no electricity, and Clint had been_ horribly _bored and had been tormenting Phil by singing every pop song he could think of at top volume. They’d had a roaring fire stoked and were lounging around in front of it._

_“Time to play a game,” Phil had said in that deliciously dangerous tone of voice he sometimes used, and Clint had felt his vision blur, knowing his pupils had dilated ridiculously quickly. Phil didn’t say that phrase often, and it always ended up with a scene that was both scary and incredibly hot. Clint had gone still, almost instantly dropping into subspace._

_“Your job is simple, Clint. Keep your eyes open. You may blink, but if you close your eyes for more than a blink, the game stops.”_

_“That’s it, Sir?”_

_“That’s it.”_

_“Piece of cake.” Clint’s answer had been complete bravado. He couldn’t figure out the angle, but he had known if it was Coulson’s challenge, then there was something he was missing, because Coulson never,_ ever _made a game easy._

_“Okay then. Glad you’re not worried.”_

_“Not even a little.”_

_“Good.” Phil had smiled._

In the present, Clint scraped as much jelly off the head of his cock as he could and rubbed the tip against Phil’s lips, groaning at the feeling of the softness. “I didn’t have a clue, did I,” he whispered.

_In the cabin, Phil had slowly taken off Clint’s sweater...then his sweatshirt...then his long-sleeve t-shirt, and his undershirt, and all the rest of his clothes. (The cabin had been well-built, and the fire warm, but it was Siberia, for fuck’s sake.) He had wrapped a comforter around Clint and kept it snugly around him except for the body parts he was working with at any given time. As he had uncovered skin, he had scraped lightly with his fingernails, or bitten and tugged, or licked and then blown on the skin, watching it dimple. Clint had soon found it oddly difficult to keep his eyes open as these sensations alternated, especially when Phil returned again and again to his pebbling nipples, or his earlobes, or the crevices between his balls and thighs, or the webbing between his fingers or between his toes. Afternoon slipped into evening as Clint drowned in the feeling of being constantly touched. There had been a very clichéd bearskin rug on the floor that was more prickly underneath his ass than he would have expected. Phil had been sucking on his left big toe and tickling in-between that toe and the next with the pointy tip of his tongue, and Clint had laughed out loud._

_“Having some trouble there?” Phil had asked, his mouth full._

_“No, Sir, not a bit,” Clint had blatantly lied._

_“Good, because I’ve got a lot more work to do,” Phil had warned. And had promptly shoved a slippery finger in his ass, and Clint had yelped, because he hadn’t even realized lube was in the vicinity or anal penetration in the immediate plans. And he had closed his eyes in surprise and pleasure but had almost immediately opened them and Phil had chuckled._

“I still don’t know where you hid that lube,” Clint whispered to Phil as he pressed his cock between Phil’s lips on each stroke.

_Phil had eventually climbed underneath that comforter on top of Clint. He had opened Clint slowly with one hand while pinching and scratching constantly with the other until he had pressed all the way inside of Clint. He had stroked Clint's cock and had watched him intensely to make sure Clint’s eyes stayed open the whole time. And Clint had masterfully kept his eyes open, defiantly, watching Phil, as the pleasure built, feeling good but not particularly unique, until it had spilled over, his body clenching once, twice, again, his juice spurting into Phil’s hand just when Phil spilled into him._

_Clint had smiled, a little smugly, a little disappointed at a game that was pleasant but was still a pale imitation of their usual playtime. Phil had fed the handful of jizz to Clint, who had rolled his open eyes at Phil and had licked the hand clean. And then Phil had swiped most of Clint’s leaking ass and had fed that to him too, and Clint had frowned but had licked that up as well, knowing that he had showered thoroughly earlier._

_And then Phil had smiled wide, a bland, regular smile that was intensely creepy, because it was the one he used in interrogation right before hardened criminals started to cry, and Clint’s smug smile had vanished. Phil had flipped the comforter off Clint, who had kind of huddled in around on himself—when had the fire dropped so low?—and Phil had strolled over to the ice chest in the kitchen and had pulled out the bowl of yesterday’s chili._

_“No, no no no. You don’t need to prove anything, Sir.”_

_“Don’t I?” Phil had said softly as he walked back over and knelt in front of Clint. “I rather think I do. You didn’t seem very_ impressed _with that particular orgasm.” He had dipped one finger in the chili, getting it thoroughly covered in the sauce, and had waved it menacingly in front of Clint’s eyes before slowly bringing it down to smear it lovingly around and a bit inside Clint’s urethral slit._

_The burn had started hotter than Tiger Balm and had ramped up quickly from there._

_“No, Phil, no, help, please…”_

_Phil had bent down immediately and sucked, tonguing Clint’s slit clean. Clint had leaned back on his hands, staring up at the ceiling and keeping his eyes wide open as he had panted loudly. The heat kept burning for a while, even though the sauce had been on his skin for mere moments._

_“Shit, Sir…”_

_Phil had then painted Clint’s nipples with sauce, leaving it on and pushing him to lie flat so it wouldn’t drip off._

_“Sir, please, stop…”_

_“Close your eyes and this all goes away.”_

_“Sir, please, I’m sorry I laughed, this isn’t funny, you’re my master, you’re totally the master of me, please stop, I’ll do anything you ask, just stop please, Sir,” Clint had babbled, but he had kept his eyes open, unwilling to give up._

_Phil had dipped his balls in the bowl next, which hadn’t hurt as much as he had expected. Then Phil had put his finger back in the bowl, sucked it clean, and pushed it in Clint’s anus, which had hurt_ much _more than he had expected. He had screamed and had gotten hard again at the same time, which was really confusing, and tears had streamed down his face, but he had kept his eyes open and locked on the ceiling, pleas spilling out of his mouth as Phil had chuckled quietly at him._

“You just wouldn’t stop,” Clint murmured, swiping the rest of the jelly off his cock with the hem of his t-shirt and pushing his cock all the way into Phil’s mouth. Clint put his hands lightly on the sides of Phil’s head. “You wouldn’t let me rest.” 

_Phil had coated his hand in sauce and had jacked Clint off again, the chili spice a slight tingle against the skin of his penis as his anus burned, and his balls buzzed, and his nipples flickered with heat. And his eyes watered as he had blinked fast and hard, and then he had cum, shooting again and again and again, feeling overwhelmed between the pain and the pleasure and hating Phil and loving him and crying and laughing and staring at the flickering, dying light on the ceiling of that cabin. And as he had lay there panting, Phil had gotten a wet, soft cloth from the kitchen and had wiped him down everywhere, including his anus, and then had dried him off with Phil’s own t-shirt, and had covered them both back up with the comforter. And Phil had laid next to him, warming and comforting him with his own body. And then he had turned Clint’s head so that Clint was looking directly at him._

Clint turned Phil’s head to face him at the same angle, pushing his cock all the way into Phil’s mouth.

_Phil had said, “Keep your eyes on mine, Clint. One more time. Prove to me that you love me.”_

_And it had been lame and cheesy, and Clint had been so tired by that time. and he had been sure he couldn’t come again. Phil had pressed inside him and then yelled because he hadn’t had to face that stupid chili burn himself, but he had pushed through it. And then he had been making love to Clint._

_Clint had started crying again, overwhelmed, but he had kept his eyes open, dammit, he really had, and all of a sudden it had been strange, watching Phil; it had been so very hard not to look away. He had felt like even after all the years they had been together, all the hard ops and all the times they had almost bled out in each others’ arms, and all the rough scenes they had done, and all the humiliating sexual things he had done at Phil’s command, that at moment, right then, he had felt stripped bare—like Phil had been able to see into his soul._

_Something had softened in Phil’s gaze. He had felt accepted, he had felt as though Phil had seen all of him and then said “Yes, I take all of you, every single piece of you, the good and the bad and the parts you are ashamed of; those too, I want them all.” And Clint had given them to him; somehow, he had given them to Phil, through his eyes._

_And at that moment a final orgasm had hit him, and he had cried out and finally closed his eyes. Phil had moaned and dropped his head against Clint’s. Clint had felt Phil flooding him with warmth, and just a little more slippery cum had spurted out of Clint between their bellies, and they had held each other tight, that cold and snowy night in Siberia, and they had fallen asleep on that slightly scratchy bearskin rug, under that comforter, and had woken up stiff and sticky and awed and quiet and fingering their wedding rings._

And in a gritty, deserted cement alley between two warehouses in a port of New York City, Clint moaned, and came in his lover’s mouth, and his lover involuntarily swallowed at the taste and shuddered.

And opened his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that this chapter also contains a description of ejaculation into the mouth of an unconscious person who would be enthusiastically consenting if he was conscious.
> 
> Edited by the amazingly wonderful and patient [Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint). She went through at least two—was it three?— editing iterations and made it far more readable. This chapter was actually really difficult to edit because the first version was nigh unreadable, so my unending gratitude goes to lovely Dammit_Clint, who made this at least presentable.
> 
> I swore I would never do this...but since she went through so many versions, I've made a lot more edits since the last one and I am wholly responsible for any mistakes or weirdnesses. (And any writer who says that deserves to hear "Ya shoulda sent it back to your beta editor!!!")
> 
> The "old animated Christmas special" is, of course, _[Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss'_How_the_Grinch_Stole_Christmas!_\(TV_special\))_ (1966, Chuck Jones, director).


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to be okay.
> 
> (Kind of an epilogue.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to [ Dammit_Clint](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Dammit_Clint/pseuds/Dammit_Clint) for beta editing.

“Don’t leave.”

“I don’t want to leave.”

They were down to the basics, there in that grubby alley. Clint was half-naked, gravel digging into his knees, his cock wet and deflating on his thighs. Phil’s skin was still gray, and he had a little cum dripping out of the side of his mouth. He sat up slowly.

“Why does my mouth taste like petroleum jelly? Where are your pants?” Phil was asking good questions, but he wasted no time in grabbing Clint and holding on tight enough to bruise. 

Clint started laughing a little hysterically.

“Sorry about the jelly. Any port in a storm.” He pointed to the abandoned can of Aquaslip marine waterproof grease.

Phil was about the brightest star in the sky, if you covered up Stark on the telescope lens. “Oh god. You had to, uh, give me a dose.”

“Yeah. Lucy, you got some splainin’ to do.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.” Phil hugged Clint harder.

“I’d say that’s an understatement.”

“You scared me so much.”

“You returned the ‘favor’, baby, you returned the favor.” Clint hugged Phil back and allowed himself the luxury of burying his head against Phil’s shoulder and squeezing his eyes shut for a moment.

Phil pulled back enough to look at Clint.

“Quick recap. You can’t go without my semen for more than three days, and me vice versa, lest we die. Got it? No more running away, or there will be death for real.”

“Coulda told me…”

“Tried. You left.”

Clint stopped hugging long enough to scrub at his face, again, with both hands.

“Helicarrier?” they both asked at the same time.

“Comm,” they both responded, like two men who’d been working together for a long time. Clint reached up and flicked the switch on.

“Hawkeye checking in. Agent Coulson up and well.” 

Clint heard a tiny tell of Natasha’s indrawn breath that meant she’d been worried sick.

“Battle concluded, assemble dockside for debrief,” Steve said shortly. Clint looked up to see Phil holding out his hand for the comm with a very unimpressed look. He grinned widely and handed it to Phil with a repeat of Steve’s sitrep. They helped each other up, and Phil helped Clint get his briefs and jeans back on, and they made their way to the dock where Iron Man and the Quinjet soon landed.

The cargo ship Clint had signed onto was pulling slowly into the port where they stood. Dozens of sodden agents were milling about the decks alongside shiphands. In the harbor, various rescue boats, a Coast Guard cutter, NYC fire boats, and a handful of fishing boats were teeming with rescue workers, fishermen thrilled for the chance to be heroes, and hoards of shivering, wet agents huddled in blankets. Broken pieces of Helicarrier bobbed forlornly amongst the boats. The Kaiju-bot was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” Clint called out as Tony walked towards them, the Iron Man suit telescoping itself off his body.

“Seems some new deckhand on that cargo ship cobbled together a bomb? Then he went and collapsed or something, so I just took that li’l ol’ bomb and stuck it down the throat of the fake Kaiju. Kaiju go boom, problem solved. Easy peasy.” Tony grinned.

“Oh, you’re alive.” 

Clint turned around to see a woman hop lightly off the rope ladder of the cargo ship onto the dock and saunter over. 

“Rizzo!” He ran over and retrieved the rat from her shoulder with careful hands.

“She’s fine, thanks for asking.”

“Felicia, was it?” Clint grinned and held out his hand.

“Yeah, and you’re Hawkeye. Wanna introduce me to your friends here?”

“This is Phil, and Tony—”

“We’ve met. Thanks for the bomb, by the way,” Tony called out.

“Oh, any time,” Felicia said pleasantly.

“—and this is Natasha, and Steve.”

Handshakes happened all around.

“Phil, this is Rizzo. He helped me through some tough spots.”

Phil held out a finger and a thumb and seriously shook one of Rizzo’s paws very gently. “Hello, Rizzo.”

“She’s pretty cool. I assume you’ll be taking her back?” Felicia asked.

“Her?” Clint said.

“We’re talking about this rat, right?” 

“Rizzo’s a funny name for a girl?” Clint responded.

“Well, I thought so, but I didn’t name her,” Felicia replied.

“She’s a girl?”

“You never checked?”

“Rizzo and I didn’t have that kind of relationship,” Clint replied with some dignity.

“Yeah. Rizzo’s a girl,” Phil confirmed. “Lemme guess, we have a new pet rat?”

“Rizzo’s nobody’s pet,” Clint corrected. “But I bet Tony could rig up a nice home for her in our apartment.”

Tony reached over and stroked Rizzo’s head carefully. “Oh, Bruce and I could come up with something pretty cool for Rizzo here. Couldn’t we Rizzo?”

Rizzo nodded.

“Bruce! BRUCE! This rat just nodded at me! Do you remember that article about that fucked-up study at Columbia?” Tony stepped away, talking to his comm unit and looking sharply at Rizzo, who looked right back at Tony from her perch on Clint’s shoulder.

Phil wrapped his arm around Clint’s waist.

“Okay Avengers. Debrief at the Tower in one hour. Fury’s handling coordination of rescue and rehabilitation of agents downtown. Clint and I are taking some much-needed time off after the debrief.” Phil stepped back a bit, steering Clint along with him. He leaned over and kissed Clint, slower and longer than he usually did in public.

“I have some things to explain to you, love. Sorry it’s taken so long,” Phil said quietly.

“It’s ok. Sounds like we have the rest of our lives.”

Rizzo rubbed her paws over her face and settled back on Clint’s shoulder, looking content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have many, many things to say in closing for part II, and they don't fit in the end notes section, so I will post a part III with the notes. (I hate seeing "10 chapters" and finding out the last chapter is all notes! Hopefully a bogus part III won't be as bad?)
> 
> Thank you for coming along on this saga; this is not the end of the Orion Bound 'verse.


End file.
